[0.71.0] [ANDROID 9] Keyboard events do not fire on Android 9

[bigcupcoffee]

Description

Brief

After upgrading an app to 0.71 everything depending on keyboard events didn't work. After short investigation issue has been narrowed down to Android 9, as my real device is android 9, another real device that works perfectly is Android 12.

Issue is reproducible on AVD with Android 9 Pie.

Downgrading to 0.70.6 fixes this.

What exactly happens

Noticed that if subscribed to the events in App.js, the show event fires once as soon as app starts up. Could be related I guess?

Version

0.71.0

Output of npx react-native info

Is not necessary

Steps to reproduce

1. Tap input
2. Keyboard pops up, events do not

Snack, code example, screenshot, or link to a repository

I simply used fresh new app with these insertions:

  useEffect(() => {
    const didShow = Keyboard.addListener('keyboardDidShow', event => {
      console.log('keyboard did show');
    });
    const didHide = Keyboard.addListener('keyboardDidHide', event => {
      console.log('keyboard did hide');
    });

    return () => {
      didShow.remove();
      didHide.remove();
    };
  }, []);
  // add to the bottom of ScrollView
  <TextInput placeholder="input is here" />

[NickGerleman]

RN 0.71 moved to the androidx WindowInsetsCompat for keyboard events on recent-ish versions of Android, which fixes some other longstanding issues 1e48274

The API is documented by Google to be reliable on Android 6+, but maybe that isn't the case...

Out of curiosity, what softInputMode is your activity? Could imagine that being a factor, but if WindowInsetsCompat isn't working as expected, the legacy code is still there, gated by an OS version check already.

[bigcupcoffee]

Out of curiosity, what softInputMode is your activity? Could imagine that being a factor

@NickGerleman adjustResize of course (reproducible on template app).
Doesn't look very reliable if I could repro it on recommended Android 9 AVD image 🤷, can't blame my specific brand image here

[NickGerleman]

Whelp... that's not good. If we aren't firing events at all, then isVisible(WindowInsetsCompat.Type.ime()) seems to not be returning correctly.

The documentation for that method is:

Returns whether a set of windows that may cause insets is currently visible on screen, regardless of whether it actually overlaps with this window. When running on devices with API Level 29 and before, the returned value is an approximation based on the information available. This is especially true for the IME type, which currently only works when running on devices with SDK level 23 and above.

If it isn't returning at all, on API 28, the last sentence doesn't seem accurate. The logic can be changed to avoid WindowInsetsCompat, and just use WindowInsets when natively present, falling back to RN's old heuristic for anything before.

[bigcupcoffee]

Noticed that if subscribed to the events in App.js, the show event fires once as soon as app starts up. Could be related I guess?

It appears it does return something? Excuse if I'm being lost since I'm not friendly with native side, but apparently it just thinks that keyboard is permanently open 🤔

[fabOnReact]

#14887 (comment)
Adding the link for documentation.